296 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



our endeavour is that the plants we introduce should 

 carry with them something of pleasant association, 

 recalling happy journeyings at home or abroad, or 

 reminiscent of their donors, friends who yet remain 

 to us, or who, in cases not a few, have passed away, 

 the fragile flowers yet springing up with each 

 returning Spring and ever recalling to us our loss 

 of the intimacy that, based on community of tastes, 

 was so delightful. 



A rock-garden, fernless, is unthinkable. In 

 addition to the inherent beauty, a great attraction 

 in ferns is that they will flourish vigorously where 

 most other plants would not prosper at all, and thus 

 spots that would be useless and bare become as 

 full of interest as the rest of our garden. A 

 mixture of sand, peat or leaf mould, and loam in 

 almost equal proportions, suits most of them to 

 admiration, and when the roots are once established 

 they need little or no further attention, since they 

 will continue growing vigorously year after year, 

 asking at most an occasional watering during a dry 

 season. One of the errors that one has to avoid 

 in planting is the not allowing sufficient room for 

 subsequent expansion of the individual plants. To 

 avoid a temporarily empty look and to gain a rich 

 effect too speedily there is a great temptation to 

 plant our ferns too closely together, and then in but 

 a short time we find them hopelessly hindering each 

 other's full development. To see a fern in its real 



